Hidden Jones and Freleng

Friz Freleng’s “All Abir-r-r-d” doesn’t just have references to staff members in the opening (see this post) but during the baggage car scenes.



Here’s a parcel sent by Mel Blanc to “Fred Fraling.” I can only imagine the variety of ways people mispronounced Friz Freleng’s name. The cartoon studio was at 1351 North Van Ness.



Here’s a crate for another resident of 1351 N. Van Ness—one C. Martin Jones. I suspect you know which cartoon director he is.



The trunk is on its way to Friz Freleng of Pratt Falls, Wisconsin. There may not be a Pratt Falls, but there is a Hawley Pratt who laid out this cartoon.



The label on the green case reads “Tedd Pierce.” Pierce wrote the cartoon. The rest of the label isn’t very readable but it says “Low” and “Nevada.” I presume it’s a Las Vegas/Low Wages gag. I can’t read the label on the red hat box.



“Anyone can ? this one for free”.



Gower Gulch was the nickname of the area at Gower and Sunset, not all that far from the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. At one time, it’s where cowboys hung out to get work as extras in silent westerns.

The inside jokes are again from the brush of background artist Paul Julian.

A Pair of Dolls

You don’t hear about too many loving relationships in Hollywood, but Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone were occasionally public about theirs’, judging by the number of newspaper stories over the years. The relationship must have been a real one—someone would have exposed it as phoney if it wasn’t (especially those who later revealed they weren’t all the wild about Mary).

Here’s a full-page feature story from the New York Post, June 28, 1947. The photo to the right was one of several accompanying the Post story. Incidentally, that’s the reporter’s real name. He was born in the Waukegan suburb of Chicago on February 12, 1902 and died in New York on October 15, 1990.

‘Doll’ and—‘Doll’
By WAMBLY BALD
The fabulously successful Jack Bennys are nothing if not simple.
Backstage at the Roxy Theatre, where Jack and his comic troupe recently drew laughs for a reported $10,000 per week, he was explaining while puffing his long cigar:
“Mary and I live quietly in our Beverly Hills house. No big noisy parties, no night clubs. A pleasant evening at home for us is a game of gin rummy with a few very close friends. And then early to bed.
“Food? Oh, we go for good, plain food like chops or hamburgers. I'm not hard to please. My tastes are very simple.”
The chops and hamburgers, though, are prepared by their expert cook. Other appurtenances of the simple Benny household include maid, butler, governess and swimming pool. While in New York they occupy a Sherry Netherlands tower suite.
Jack Benny, discarding his cigar and lighting a fresh one, then turned to his wife and fellow radio performer, Mary Livingstone. Blandly, he delivered this line to her:
“Isn't that so, Doll?”
“Why, of course, Doll,” she answered. In the couple's 20 years of marriage, they've been calling each other “Doll,” occasionally lapsing into “Babe.” Then “Doll” (Mary) turned to the reporter:
“We lead very ordinary lives, really. Our favorite game is golf, shoots in the 80s.”
In Beverly Hills, she added, Jack likes to hang around the house in bathrobe and slippers, and will often receive guests while he's dressed that way. They have a movie projector, and when their close friends — the Robert Taylors, the Gary Coopers or Burns and Allen drop over, a quiet evening of home movies is had by all. Sometimes they'll go to the fights or a night baseball game, or read.
“Oh,” she said, stepping forward and giving him a hug, “he's the easiest person in the world to get along with. We have our arguments, of course, as all married couples do, but I always start them.”
Here the visitor sailed in quickly. “Like what?” he asked.
“Well, for instance, I like to motor across country while Mary prefers riding the trains,” Jack said. “Little things like that. Here, have a cigar.”
Benny doesn't smoke much. Actually, he takes three or four puffs at a good cigar, chews it a while, then throws it away. Lately he has taken to sucking at a tobacco-less pipe so that he might cut down on his cigar-reflex habit. Both cigars and pipe seemed to be personality adjuncts or props, like the fiddle he used in his early vaudeville days.
That is not to say that Benny didn't have the equipment of a good musician. He freely admitted he had studied the violin for nine years, and that he once wanted above all else to become a famous concert violinist. But the ready world of comedy drew him away from that goal.
At 53, Benny, who has been batting out radio comedy since 1932 (following a guest appearance on columnist Ed Sullivan's program), is still plugging realistically along, hammering away to stay on top. With his four gagmen, he has to hit the ball every week, hewing out humor for the millions, and it's very hard work, he said, without going into the mechanical details of it all.
“What I said about leading a simple life wasn't kidding,” he confided, dropping his bland manner. “At home I don't try to be funny. I am a great audience, strictly a listener at home, and when we have guests who say or do funny things, I'm glad to laugh with them, not try to top them.”
He took a puff at another cigar, looked absorbed, spoke in his mouthy drawl of his 13-year-old adopted daughter, Joan, and then said a word or two about his radio comedy technique:
“It's situation comedy. Radio audiences expect certain things from their comedians, and in my case it's situation built around character. I'm supposed to be a pinchpenny, with all the others picking on me.
“Well, to counteract that character in real life, I always overtip. And as to analysis of humor, I never went into that. I don't go in for any highbrow stuff, and as for political leanings, I am just not interested. If you want to know who my favorite humorist is—it's Stephen Leacock. His humor is marvelous.”
Jack, who can look alternately bland and glum, used the word “marvelous” frequently. He said that Mary—she was flitting in and out of the dressing room was a “marvelous” critic of gags, even though she didn't participate in their shaping, that she was wrong only “once in a hundred times.”
Also that she was a “marvelous” dress designer, “the best in the world,” and knew that art so well that she could have been “a millionaire in no time if she followed it.” She has a good eye for clothes, too, and helps Jack select his.
Mary, who had heard some of this, said emphatically that she appears with Jack on his radio program only because he's in it, that she never really cared for show business. She is a tall, slender, charming brunette, with a quick, eager manner. And she is so unaffected that she might readly be taken for any good helpmate wife, solely concerned with supporting her husband's role in life. She gets all jittery, she said, during and after each broadcast, whereas Jack remains calm.
Jack, raised in Waukegan, Ill., but born in Chicago (despite previous reports), is 5-feet-9, fair-looking, and his right eye is bluer than his left. His father was a Waukegan haberdasher.
Jack's climb from a young fiddler looking for a job follows a familiar pattern: vaudeville, then revues and the movies, and finally radio. During World War I he was in the Navy, spending most of his time entertaining with his violin. Soon after this he discovered that joking with audiences brought better response than actually playing the instrument.
Jack's first meeting with Mary dates to the time she was 12, and the Marx Brothers brought the young performer to her home in Vancouver. Some years later they met again in Los Angeles, where Jack was playing the Orpheum.
Right across the street was Mary, working as a May Co. stocking salesgirl; she kept leaving her post to call upon her old friend despite protestations of the floorwalker. A few dates led to their marriage in Waukegan on Jan. 14. 1927.
Both agree it wasn't love at first sight; it “just grew.” In fact, just before the nuptials, Mary had another boy friend, and Jack telephoned her long distance: “You're too young to get married. Take the first train to Chicago and I'll explain!”
When she got there, he lost little time. His father helped him in his arguments for a marriage, and all the other prospective in-laws chimed right in. The couple have been happily together ever since, and it wasn't long before Jack encouraged Mary to work with him in show business.
"Jack is wonderful," said Mary, flinging her arms around him once more while the camera clicked. “Just think, we still call each other ‘Doll’ after 20 years:” “Doll is a marvelous person,” announced the Waukegan Wit, finally breaking from the clinch and grinning.

Peace For Parents, Thanks to Terrytoons

You wanted to watch cartoons at home before DVDs were invented and before they were broadcast on TV? Then you bugged your parents to get you a movie projector.

Probably the biggest name in home movies was Castle Films. The company had a catalogue offering all kinds of films, including cartoons. Department store ads in newspapers in the 1950s and ‘60s plugged them as well, especially Woody Woodpecker cartoons.

Here’s a newspaper story that reads like it was written from a Castle press release. I found it in a paper dated April 29, 1938 but it was obviously written before then.

PEACE at last! for Daddy and Mother. And “Peace, it's wonderful.”
No more must harassed parents lay aside their own newspapers time and again to read the comic sections “just once more” for little Jimmy and Nancy.
Thanks for that go to Eugene W. Castle, who is releasing these “rest cures for parents” under the title of “Terry-Toons.”
Now, when three-year old Penelope insists that she wants to hear the comic strips read for the firth time, Daddy can refuse with impunity, for he can switch on the home movie machine, and Presto! Little Penny can watch her favorite characters in action right in her play room.
Rip Van Winkle, Pandora, Beanstalk Jack and all the animals of the zoo have been household figures for ages. The youngsters have had pictures of them in books, on the playroom walls and on their cereal dishes and cups, but it remained for Mr. Castle and Paul Terry, one of the movie industry's top flight animators, to bring them to life in the home.
As a result, these characters no longer are just figures to amuse the children. Now they're the life of any party, for Mr. Terry has immortalized them in animated cartoons now available for the first time on 8 and 16 mm. film.
Until Mr. Castle hit upon the idea of adding full length cartoons to the release schedule of Castle Films, Inc., home movie tans who wanted cartoons in the film libraries had to be content with 100-foot clips cut from comics at least five years old.
When they put one of the new “Terry-Toons” into a projector, they know they're going to see a complete cartoon story of recent vintage. The first six to be released April 16 are “Pandora,” “Rip Van Winkle,” “Holland Days,” “Just a Clown,” “Beanstalk Jack,” and “Grand Uproar.”
Although they all will be released for both sound and silent projectors, Mr. Castle selected the cartoons for their effectiveness in silent version, with the thought in mind that the majority of the 2,000,000 home movie fans in the country have silent machines.

There’s no point in telling you more about Castle Films and its movies-for-sale. Others have done it for me. Scott MacGillvray wrote Castle Films: A Hobbyists’s Guide (published in 2004). You can read much of the book by going here and discover which Ub Iwerks movies the company sold for home viewing. And if you want a nice precis of the company, who better to tell you than Mark Evanier? You can read it on his site.

There's Three of Everything

Ub Iwerks loved everything rounded in the backgrounds of his cartoons, even in his supposedly more realistic ComiColor fairy tales. Here are some examples from a washed out print of “The Three Bears” (1935) from one of those public domain DVDs.

The big gag in the first half of this cartoon is there are three of everything in varying sizes. Bugs Hardaway was writing for Iwerks then, wasn’t he?



How can you tell this is an Iwerks short? Radiating lines over someone’s head.



Animators were not credited on the ComiColors. Carl Stalling’s original score gets a mention.

Name That Circle

A black screen slowly becomes a black circle with white around it. What is it? The circle pulls back some more.



Just another pull-back opening for a Walt Disney cartoon. This is from “Mickey’s Choo-Choo” (1929).

Cantor on Comedy

Eddie Cantor was star of vaudeville, Broadway (and song as a result), early sound films, radio and the first few years of network television which, more or less, was going full circle considering the nature of variety shows back then. So it would appear Cantor knew something about comedy.

He gave his viewpoint about it in an interview with the Brooklyn Eagle’s radio columnist, Jo Ranson, in a short piece published on October 17, 1940. It’s interesting to note that Cantor believed the comics who, in earlier radio times, played up to the studio audience weren’t on the air any more. Cantor’s memory was being selective. Fred Allen groused in Treadmill to Oblivion that Cantor wore funny costumes, beat his announcer and kicked his guests to get laughs from the studio audience, leaving the home listener baffled about what was so funny.

The story was published about two weeks after Cantor returned to the air after a season’s layoff. Radio histories will tell you Cantor had been immediately yanked off the air by his sponsor for a diatribe he made at the New York World’s Fair on June 13, 1939. That isn’t quite what happened, judging by contemporary reports. On May 24, 1939, Variety reported that Cantor would be going off the air on June 26. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco allowed a May 29 deadline pass without a decision about whether to renew Cantor’s contract so it would appear something was going on behind the scenes long before Cantor’s anti-bigotry speech at the Fair. The trade paper finally reported on June 28 that the maker of Camels decided not to pick up Cantor’s option. The speech may simply been the last straw; at this time Cantor was involved in a couple of lawsuits and a messy internal battle in the American Federation of Actors.

There is No Ersatz For Laughter, Cantor
It was in the month of October in the year 1931 that bug-eyed Eddie Cantor made his first appearance on the air. That was at 711 5th Ave. and Merlin H. Aylesworth was prexy of the outfit. Today Cantor, 10 years older and considerably more familiar with the ways of radio, is doing his stuff from Radio City, and he thinks radio has gone a mighty long way since the days of carbon mikes and the wobbly jokes of Ernie Hare and Billy Jones.
"Yes. there have been changes," he says. "They were slow in coming, but the changes have been for the better. The quality of radio comedy is at a higher level now than at any period in radio's history. Puns, jokes and wheezes have passed out of the picture. In their place we have situations involving real people. We are making actors living persons instead of machines that spout jokes. Radio comedy is building characters, not caricatures, and you can give Jack Benny credit for showing the way. He gave us real characters that every listener can recognize."
Faster Comedy Tempo
There's a faster tempo in radio comedy today, according to Cantor. "We're doing in a half-hour now what some programs used to do in an hour."
Cantor observes that comics today aren't playing up to studio audiences as much as they did in the past. "The boys who made people scream in the studios are not on the air any more." He added that funnymen don't make any more gags about Hedy Lamarr or Bing Crosby's nags. That passed out of the window last season. "Nowadays the comics cater to the home bodies. No comic has a right on the air unless he can see in his mind's eye the Nebraskans, the Alabamans, the Iowans and all the rest."
Cantor's Troupe
Speaking of the people who work with him on his current Wednesday program, he declared that Maude Davis, who plays Mrs. Waterfull, "has a better sense of timing than any woman I have ever worked with in my life." Harry Von Zell, his announcer, is "unquestionably the greatest announcer-actor-comedian in the business."
Regarding the future of radio comedy, Cantor holds that "there will be an avalanche, an epidemic of laughter. We need laughter as much as we need music. Laughter is a balance very necessary in these times. You will hear more and more laughter because people will be afraid NOT to laugh. If the dictators didn't suppress laughter they wouldn't have a chance, because laughter makes a people relax and think. As long as we can laugh we're safe. There have been substitutes for oil, for food and clothing, but never has there been a substitute for laughter. There has yet to be an ersatz laughter. Laughter is the most important thing in the world today. It is the oxygen tank to keep America alive today."

It’s no great surprise Cantor lavished praise on Harry Von Zell instead of the announcer of his last show. Bert Parks ended up suing Cantor in December for 26 weeks back salary and damages for what he claimed was a “setback to his career.” Considering Parks’ biggest fame was ahead, first with “Stop the Music” in the late ‘40s and then during a long tenure as the host of the Miss America pageant on TV, being bounced by Cantor didn’t hurt him a bit.

Bad Luck Blackie Trunk Gag

What? It’s been over two years since we posted something from “Bad Luck Blackie”? Well, let’s fix that.

Every cat owner will recognise the kitten’s screw-you expression.



Everyone here knows how this cartoon works. The kitten is threatened by the bulldog. The kitten blows a whistle. The black cat crosses the bulldog’s path for bad luck. Bad luck falls from the sky. Repeat gag with variation.

This is the trunk scene. Scott Bradley and his arranger help out with quiet woodwinds as the black cat flicks its feet during this version of the walk.



Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton, Louie Schmitt and Preston Blair are the animators in one of Tex Avery’s all-time greats.

How Many Aces?

Mike Maltese revived and revamped the old poker “I’ve got four aces/I’ve got five aces” gag. He changes the numbers to five and six. With both players cheating it’s even more ridiculous. The players in question are Bugs Bunny and Colonel Shuffle.

I really like subtle sight gag where Shuffle’s eyes give away his hand.



Note how Bugs is holding five cards but a sixth somehow appears when he spreads them out on the table.



Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam and Phil Monroe are Chuck Jones’ animation crew in “Mississippi Hare.”

A Fake/Real Jack Benny Show

Once upon a time, there was such a thing as a summer replacement programme. It dated its origin in radio, where a star would work 39 weeks and then (s)he’d take the summer off, with a different programme substituting for the next 13 weeks. Reruns didn’t exist; the networks (until the late ‘40s) steadfastly broadcast only live programming.

A fan magazine came up with a stroke of genius. Radio Mirror decided—at least, I presume the magazine’s publishers made the decision—to present a Jack Benny radio programme over the summer, printing a script made from a composite of previous Benny programmes. The first one appeared in the September 1937 edition.

The 1936-37 season was marked by several things. Phil Harris replaced Johnny Green as the orchestra leader (Green went to work for Fred Astaire). Eddie Anderson was added to the show as Rochester but was not a regular. The Benny-Allen feud over “The Bee” began that season. So did the Buck Benny sketches.

I haven’t hunted around for the origins of all of the various parts used to create the “show” below. The play was rewritten from the May 3, 1936 broadcast; it featured Frank Parker and Don Bester guesting while the “script” omits them. Maw was played on the radio by the versatile Blanche Stewart. The Don-vs-Insurance Salesman portion is reworked from the Nov. 10, 1935 programme with Pat C. Flick as the salesman. The traffic cop appeared on Oct. 27, 1935; the actor was someone named Bennett. Recordings of these show don’t exist so this is the closest you’ll get to hearing them. Both of those programmes were written by Harry W. Conn, the writer who felt he was the brains behind Jack Benny’s success and quit in April 1936. History has shown us Conn was sadly mistaken.

No Maxwell yet. Jack drives a Whippet. They existed from 1926-31, so there should have been some on the streets at the time this was written. There’s a reference to Mary Livingstones real-life brother Hilliard Marks, who later produced the show. The script has the NBC chimes at the quarter-hour mark; the network did that until...hmm, I don’t actually know. It had certainly stopped by 1937. Jack isn’t And General Foods must have been ecstatic about the free plugs for Jell-O in the script (maybe it’s equally happy today that we’ve transcribed it).



JACK BENNY’S “VACATION BROADCAST”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here is a new idea — Radio Mirror’s own READIO-broadcast. You can’t hear it, but you can read it, and get thirty minutes of the same fun you have when you tune in America’s number one comedian. On these pages you will find some of the best laughs and playlets that have made Jack Benny’s program the most popular in the past three years. It’s all based on material furnished by Jack Benny himself, and skilfully blended to make a perfect program — Jack’s “Vacation Broadcast.” Watch for his second READIO-broadcast next month.

THOUGH Jack Benny’s off the air, Radio Mirror magazine is bringing you a full Benny program! All you have to do is lean back in your favorite easy-chair and tune in to this magazine. The reception is good — the dials are set just right — are you ready? Then imagine that it’s Sunday evening. If you live in New York the time is seven o’clock. If you live in a daze, it’s seven o’clock anyway. There go the chimes, and the announcer saying, "This is the National Broadcasting Company". Another voice, hearty, robust — it’s Don Wilson:

“The Jell-O program! Starring Jack Benny, with Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris and his orchestra. The orchestra opens the program with “September in the Rain.”
(Close your eyes and listen a minute. Sure enough, it’s Phil Harris leading his men in the charming music of “September in the Rain.”)
DON: Tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Jack, Mary, and all the rest of us are sailing for Europe on our summer vacation. We’re all here on board the good ship Jelloa, which is due to get up steam and start out any minute. And now we bring you your friend, my friend, and Jack Benny’s friend — as fine a fellow as ever stooped to pick up a cigar butt — Jack Benny! . . . Uh, where is Jack, anyway?
PHIL: Jack just called up, Don. He said he and Mary were on their way over to the ship now. They ought to be here any minute. (. . . Listen. There’s the sound of an automobile motor and an auto horn. Somebody’s in an awful hurry. Now they’re talking. Remember that high-pitched voice of Mary’s, and that worried one of Jack’s?)
MARY: Watch out, Jack. You nearly hit that dog.
JACK: Mary, I’m driving this car, and I’ve got to step on it. We’re late.
MARY: Watch out! You nearly hit that bakery truck.
JACK: Hey, you big palooka, why didn’t you put your hand out?
TRUCK DRIVER: If I did, I’d put it on yer jaw.
JACK: Oh yeah?
TRUCK DRIVER: Yeah!
JACK: (He starts the car again). Oh well, it’s a good thing for that mugg I’m in a hurry.
MARY: It’s a good thing for you, too. Careful, Jack, you’re on the sidewalk.
JACK: How did I get up here? A fine place for the city to put up sidewalks.
MARY: Oh look. Jack, a fellow wants you to stop here.
JACK: Who is it?
MARY: He’s got a uniform on and he doesn’t look like a sailor.
JACK: Well. I can’t stop now. (We hear a police whistle).
MARY: Look, Jack, he’s running after us and he’s got a motorcycle under him.
JACK: Oh, that’s different.
THE COP: Hey, you, pull over there to the curb!
(We hear the car and the motorcycle slow up and stop)
THE COP: What’s your hurry and where’s your driver’s license?
JACK: Why, officer, it isn’t at all necessary. I’m Jack Benny.
THE COP: So what? What make car is this?
JACK: A late Whippet.
THE COP: Whaddaya mean a late Whippet?
MARY: He’s always late in it.
THE COP: Who owns it?
JACK: The finance company.
THE COP: Well, I’ll have to give you a ticket. What did you say your name was?
JACK: Jack Benny.
THE COP: Not the Jack Benny of the Jell-O program — with six delicious flavors?
JACK: Yep, that’s me.
THE COP: Well, whaddaya know about that? Gee, the wife and kids will be surprised when I tell ‘em I met you two. We get a great kick out of you on the air.
JACK: Well, thanks, officer. (We hear him mutter to Mary, but the cop doesn’t.) I got him now, Mary.
THE COP: Are you on your way to a broadcast now?
JACK: Yes, we’re going to Europe and we’re going to broadcast from the ship. We’re late now.
THE COP: That’s too bad. I certainly hope you get there in time. I want to listen in.
JACK: Thank you, officer. Here’s a cigar.
THE COP: Thank you. Mr. Benny. Here’s your ticket.
JACK: Play, Phil!
(There’s the music of Phil Harris orchestra again, and darned if it isn’t playing your favorite piece. “There’s a Lull in My Life.” When it finishes, we hear Jack Benny again — and what’s he saying? Listen:)
JACK: Jell-O, again, folks. This is Jack Benny, the Ancient Mariner — you see we finally caught the ship and here we are, broadcasting an exclusive summer program on station R-A-D-I-O M-I-R-R-O-R—brought to you through the courtesy of the editor of Radio Mirror—
DON: Who comes in six delicious flavors—Strawberry, Raspberry, Cherry—
JACK: Quiet, Don! That was Don Wilson, folks, scrambling sponsors. We’re broadcasting direct from the drawing room of the S. S. Jelloa, on our way to Europe. Say, Don, I meant to ask you before — how much is this trip going to — er —
DON: Oh, I think we can do it easily for ten thousand dollars — not more than eleven, anyway. Not bad, is it?
JACK: (He makes a noise that sounds something like a strangled seal) Ten thou — Oh, no, not at all — not at all bad. But — I was just thinking, Don. Why can’t we all go second class instead of first? So many of my friends tell me it’s much more fun second class.
DON: It’s cheaper, too.
JACK: (Innocently) Oh, is it? Well, I hear there’s very little difference between first and second class.
DON: No, that’s wrong. Jack. For one thing, second class has no swimming pool.
JACK: Well, good heavens, Don, who needs a swimming pool? You got the whole ocean. That’s ridiculous!
MARY: And besides. Jack can’t swim.
DON: All right, we’ll ask Phil and all the boys if they’d rather go second class. (He shouts) How about it?
EVERYBODY: No!
JACK: Oh, all right, but you’re making a great mistake.
PHIL: Jack, there’s a man just came in and he wants to see you.
JACK: Oh, I suppose it’s somebody wanting me to appear in the ship’s concert. And I was hoping I’d get a vacation! Well, I suppose I must.
THE SALESMAN: Mr. Benny, now is the time to take advantage of our liberal offer.
JACK: Oh! What are you selling?
THE SALESMAN: Life insurance. I represent the Here-Today-and-Gone Tomorrow Insurance Company. How old are you?
JACK: Well, a man is as old as he feels.
THE SALESMAN: And how are you feeling today?
JACK: I never felt better in my life.
THE SALESMAN: That’s good, but how long can it last? How do you know what will be in your hamburger steak tonight?
JACK: I don’t eat hamburger.
THE SALESMAN: What do you eat?
JACK: Hash.
THE SALESMAN: Our policy covers that too.
JACK: No, thanks, I don’t want any.
THE SALESMAN: Well, how about an annuity?
JACK: What kind have you?
THE SALESMAN: What kind, he’s asking! You pay us all the money you got until you’re seventy.
JACK: And then?
THE SALESMAN: After that, then we are the suckers.
JACK: But suppose I live until I’m ninety?
THE SALESMAN: There’s a clause here — you can’t do it.
JACK: Well, tell me how much do I need for an annuity policy?
THE SALESMAN: You give me a hundred thousand dollars now, and the minute you’re seventy years old, Pacific Standard Time, we pay you fifty bucks a week.
JACK: Well, I don’t happen to have that much change with me.
THE SALESMAN: Make it fifty thousand dollars and enjoy twenty-five dollars a week.
JACK: I’m a little embarrassed. I only have ten dollars with me.
THE SALESMAN: Well, give me that and we’ll send you a cigar every week.
JACK: No, thanks — but maybe Wilson wants some insurance. Hey, Don, you talk to him awhile, won’t you?
THE SALESMAN: Mr. Wilson, let me tell you about our policies with our liberal offer —
DON: Let me tell you about Jell-O, with its six delicious flavors —
THE SALESMAN: We have annuities, endowments, straight life and accident policies —
DON: We have Strawberry, Raspberry, Cherry, Orange, Lemon and Lime —
JACK: Boys! Boys!
THE SALESMAN: But I’m selling insurance.
DON: And I’m selling Jell-O. Look for the big red letters on the box!
THE SALESMAN: (He’s licked now:) Six million programs on the air and I had to come here. . . Play, Phil!
(Phil and the Boys play “Sailing, Sailing, Over the Bounding Main.” When they’re through, we hear two long blasts of a ship’s whistle.)
JACK: (He’s yawning, and you can almost see him stretching.) Ho-hum, only the second day out, and already I feel like a million dollars, only lazier. Sea air does make you lazy, doesn’t it, Mary?
MARY: It’s not what makes you lazy.
JACK: Just think, Mary — all that ocean is filled with fish.
MARY: Yeah — did you ever hear the one about the racketeer sardine?
JACK: No.
MARY: He wound up in the can.
JACK: Mary, next time you pass my deck chair, pass my deck chair.
PHIL: Hello, Jack!
Jack: Hello, Phil. Haven’t seen you since we sailed. Where’ve you been?
PHIL: Oh, around. We ought to get together for dinner some evening.
JACK: Which is your stateroom?
PHIL: Four-B What’s yours?
JACK: Why, I’m in Four-B too. That must be you in the next twin bed. I was wondering who it was. Well, I’m certainly glad to know that . . . Hello, Don. Funny, Phil and I just found out we’re in the same stateroom, and we never even knew it. What’s your stateroom.
DON: Four-B.
JACK: Four-B — Hey, wait a minute. Phil and I are in there. We didn’t see you.
DON: I’m in the Murphy bed you can’t let down.
MESSENGER BOY: Jellogram for Jack Benny!
JACK: Right here, son, and stick to your own racket.
DON: Who’s it from, Jack?
JACK: Wait until I open it. (There is a loud ripping noise.) Hey, what is this, a cheese cloth envelope?
MARY: Better get glasses— that was your shirt.
JACK: Oh! Say, fellows, here’s a lovely radiogram from New York. It says, “Here’s wishing you and your gang a very happy vacation trip,” signed Fred Allen, Phil Baker, Stoopnagle and Bud, Jessica Dragonette, Rubinoff and his violin, the Easy Aces, Kate Smith, Lanny Ross and the Hall Johnson Choir. Isn’t that sweet? They must have all chipped in to send the wire.
DON: Yeah.
MARY: I wonder who swung the deal.
JACK: I’m surprised Jack Pearl didn’t get his name in.
MARY: He didn’t have to. You just mentioned it.
JACK: That’s right. I did.
MARY: That reminds me, Jack, I got a letter from my mother just before we sailed.
JACK: You did, eh? Well, read it to us, your mother’s always good for a laugh.
MARY: Okay, you know she had a birthday last week. “Plainfield, New Jersey. My dear daughter Mary—”
JACK: Huh, no laughs yet.
MARY: Well, it takes Ma a little time to get going. “Just a line to let you know that we are all well. I had a wonderful birthday. I got a lot of beautiful presents. Your father gave me a washing machine with a built-in radio. Isn’t he thoughtful? Right now I am waltzing through your father’s underwear, while Bing Crosby is singing, ‘Soap Gets in Your Eyes.’”
JACK: Well, well.
MARY: “Sunday night I am going to wash Father’s socks and listen to Jack.”
JACK: That’s nice, but she might have mentioned me before the socks.
MARY: Quiet. “There has been a lot of excitement at the house lately. Your Uncle Herman was here to spend the Fourth. He arrived December 24th. Your Brother Hilliard is home for the summer from Barber College, and last night while your Uncle Herman was asleep, he shaved off his mustache and upper lip.”
JACK: Oh!
MARY: “Your Uncle Herman says that as soon as Hilliard comes down from the flagpole he is going to give him a once-over with a baseball bat.”
JACK: I don’t blame him.
MARY: “I forgot to tell you in my last letter that Junior had to stop taking piano lessons. The teacher couldn’t tell when his fingers were on the black keys. No more news at present, except that your father just came in and wants me to tell Don Wilson not to worry as we have Jell-O every night. Your father always asks for the big red letters on the box even though he can’t read.”
JACK: That’s a very nice letter. Mary . . . Say — er — I’ve been wondering. Don’t they have a ship’s concert on this boat?
DON: I don’t know — why?
JACK: Oh, just wondering. I hope they don’t, because if they do they’re sure to want me to be in it, and I’m just too tired.
PHIL: Oh, sure, they’re going to have a ship’s concert tonight. I just saw the captain a few minutes ago and he asked me to sing.
JACK: He did, did he? That shows how much he knows about singing. Well, listen, Phil, you didn’t tell him I could play the violin, did you?
MARY: You can’t.
JACK: Is that so? Well, I certainly can. I could even play “The Bee” when I was ten years old— a very difficult number. And I can prove it. I’ve got a photograph of myself right here, taken when I was ten, playing “The Bee”.
MARY: I’m glad it’s not a sound picture.
DON: But, Jack, how can we tell what number you’re playing?
JACK: If you were a musician, you’d know. Let me tell you something! I played violin in concert halls long before I knew anything about Strawberry, Cherry, Orange, Lemon and Lime.
DON: You left out Raspberry.
MARY: I’ll bet the audience didn’t.
PHIL: Let me see that picture a minute, will you Jack?
JACK: Yeah, look at it, Phil, you’re a musician. That picture proves conclusively that I’m an artist.
PHIL: Well, Jack, anybody can have a picture taken with a violin.
JACK: Yes, Phil, but can’t you tell from the way I’m holding it that I can play?
PHIL: You’re holding it upside down.
JACK: Well, it’s much harder that way. Besides, I had a small chin and I couldn’t put the fiddle under it.
MARY: Now you can put a cello under it.
JACK: Is that so? Well, I’ll just prove I can play the violin. Phil, you go see that captain and tell him that as a great favor to him I’ll play the violin at the ship’s concert.
PHIL: Here he comes now. Ask him yourself — I should stick my neck out for trouble.
JACK: Oh, good morning, Captain I understand you’re arranging a ship’s concert.
THE CAPTAIN: That’s right, Mr. Benny.
JACK: Of course I’m on my vacation, but I thought, just to be a good fellow and give the passengers something really good — I’m willing to offer my services playing my violin.
THE CAPTAIN: (Terribly embarrassed) Why— as a matter of fact— Mr. Heifetz is on board, and we’d already asked him to play, so—
JACK: Oh, of course, I wouldn’t want to show him up. After all, it’s his livelihood, isn’t it? Well, perhaps you’d like to have me sing?
THE CAPTAIN: No—
JACK: Or do some card tricks?
THE CAPTAIN: No—
JACK: I could take tickets.
DON: Why don’t we do a play, and then we would all be in it?
JACK: (Disgusted) Oh, all right, if that’s the way you feel about it!



(A few bars of music, and the chimes, then your local station gives its call letters. Even your home-town station gets in on this broadcast. Now we hear Don Wilson again:)
DON: Here we are in the concert hall of the good ship Jelloa, and Jack Benny’s ready to tell you about the play we’re going to do.
JACK: Tonight, folks, we are going to offer something unusual in the line of a play. First, we tried to get “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, but we couldn’t get in touch with the author. Then we tried to get “Rose Marie”, but Rose wasn’t home and Marie wasn’t interested. Then we tried to get “Three Men on a Horse”—
MARY: But the horse complained.
JACK: Quiet! So tonight we are offering an original drama of the backwoods, called “The Code of the Hills.” The locale is the Blue Grass Country, two hundred miles south of Louisville. The action takes place in the home of the Jake Bennys, just within shooting distance of the Bestor-Parker home. And the feud is on. (There’s a burst of gunfire, then a long whistle and a single shot.)
MAW BENNY: Put that gun away, Jake, supper’s a-waitin’, A-shootin’ and a-killin’ . . . a-shootin’ and a-killin’. When is it gonna stop?
JACK: We ain’t a-gonna quit till those Bestor-Parkers are wiped out! By gum and by Jell-O, there ain’t room in these hills for the both of us!
KENNY: You said it, Pappy!
JACK: Git away from that door, Ken.
MAW: Say Paw, what have you-uns got agin the Bestor-Parkers?
JACK: That’s jes’ it, ah never did git the Bestor Parker. Remember when he-uns and we-uns was a-workin’ on the same programmey?
MAW: Yes-uns.
JACK: Well, one night ah asked him how many hairs on a monkey’s face and he sayed: the next time you shave, count ‘em. He knew I couldn’t count. I ain’t keerin’ fer that kind of talk, and ah ain’t never fergittin’!
MAW: Reckon he ain’t neither. But the Bennys and the Bestor-Parkers have been scrappin’ for two hundred yars.
JACK: Yes, Sarah, two hundred yars of a-fightin’ and a-scrotchin’ and a-killin’ each other!
MAW: Looks like it’s leadin’ up to a feud!
JACK: Wouldn’t be surprised. (More gun-shots.) Hey, Ken, barricade that double door!
KENNY: Oooh, Pappy! They got me. Pappy, they got me! (There is the sound of his body hitting the floor)
MAW: What was that, Paw?
JACK: Sarah, they-uns got our boy Ken . . . Shot him right through the door.
KENNY: Oooh, ah’m a-goin’, Pappy . . . G’by, Pappy. . . . g’by, Maw.
JACK And MAW: Good-by.
JACK: You reckon ah ought to take him out and bury him?
MAW: Better have your supper first. It’s a-gittin’ cold.
JACK: So is Ken. Shucks, ah’m so hungry right now ah could eat a horse.
MAW: Well, that’s what we got.
KENNY: Oooh, ah’m a-goin’ Pappy . . . still a-goin’.
JACK: Take your time, son.
KENNY: Shucks, and ah wanted to be President.
JACK: Well, don’t worry, you can be Vice President.
KENNY: What do you mean?
JACK: You’re a Garner.
KENNY: Oooh, that done it. (More gun-shots, and the sound of a breaking bottle)
MAW: Lands-sake, thar goes that jug of corn likker!
JACK: That’s a-goin’ too fur! Thar ain’t nothin’ sacred! {The door opens.)
PHIL: Howdy, Uncle Jake.
JACK: Hullo thar, Phil.
MAW: Where you been? You shouldn’t be a-walkin’ round with your left arm shot up like that.
PHIL: Ah’ve been a-seekin’ some cord to tie it up with. ... It keeps a-fallin’ off.
JACK: You know, Phil, ah don’t like the way that arm of yours keeps a-droppin’ off. It might be ailin’. What’s that you got under your other arm?
PHIL: Mah right leg.
MAW: Oh! Well, put it in the umbrella stand and come to dinner.
JACK: Where’s our daughter Mariah?
MAW: Here she comes now.
MARY: Hullo, Pappy, hullo Maw. Who’s that on the floor?
JACK: That’s your brother Ken. They-uns killed him daid . . yore poor brother.
MARY: Gee, ah’m hungry.
JACK: Don’t take it so hard, Mariah, ah know you loved him.
MARY: Yeah. . . . What have we got for supper, Maw?
MAW: Nothin’ fancy, just a horse.
MARY: Ah hope ah don’t git the leg agin. (More shots.)
MAW: Watch out, Jake.
JACK: They missed me.
MARY: That’s all right, they got Kenny again.
KENNY: Yup, they got me. Pappy, they got me.
JACK: Ah told you we should have buried him. But I’ll make they-uns pay for this or my name ain’t Jake. (Another shot.) Heh heh, missed me again.
MARY: Oh yeah? Where’s your ear?
JACK: Dawggone it, and ah wanted to hear Phil Baker. Hand me that other gun. (There is a rapid burst of shots, finally dwindling away.)
JACK: Well, I guess they-uns a-gittin’ tired, Sarah, they’ve stopped a-shootin’. (A long whistle and a shot.)
MARY: What was that, Paw?
JACK: Just an echo.
MARY: Well, the echo got Phil.
MAW: Feud, feud! Ah’m gittin’ sick of it!
JACK: Why, Sarah!
MAW: Feud only plow the fields — feud only tend the crops — thar wouldn’t be no feud.
DON: And speaking of feuds, you will find that Jell-O is the most delicious feud in the world, and it has that new extra rich fresh fruit flavor — (A lot of shots.)
DON: Strawberry! Raspberry! Cherry! Orange, Lemon, and —
JACK: Limey outta here! Play, Phil!
(Phil plays “She’ll be Comin Round the Mountain When She Comes.” When the music stops, Jack says:)
JACK: That was the last number of our special Radio Mirror Summer Broadcast. We’ll be with you next month in these same pages.
MARY: Oh, Jack! I’ve just written a poem. I think I’ll send it into Radio Mirror for them to publish.
JACK: What is it?
MARY: Lives of great men oft remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
JACK: Wait a minute, Longfellow wrote that.
MARY: Funny, how our minds run together.
JACK: Goodnight, folks.
Get ready now for another laugh! Next month, the second of Jack Benny’s READIO-broadcasts, as packed with guffaws as one of his programs. Even though Jack and Mary and all the gang will still Be on their vacation, there’s no need for you to miss the swell humor they bring you on the air. So watch for the October issue, on sale August 25th.

Friend of The Drelb

Many stars have been immortalised by having their footprints squished into cement on various Walks of Fame. Only one may have had his ear preserved for the future that way.

It was Gary Owens.

We’ll let this newspaper story (likely from an NBC press release) from March 4, 1971 fill us in.

Gary Owens Earmarked In Cement
The ear over which Gary Owens has been cupping his hand these years as the zany announcer on NBC Television Network’s “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” has been put in cement.
All this happened alongside the outdoor entrance to the new commissary on the NBC Television Network’s Burbank lot before an array of dignitaries — Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, the “Laugh-In” cast and Dr. Jarvey Gilbert, the mayor of Burbank. Also on hand was NBC nurse Julie Baquet on a remove-cement-from-ear-assignment. This was the first of what hopefully win became historic displays of TV stars’ famed physical characteristics — such as Jimmy Durante’s nose and the claw of the Andy Williams bear.
Ceremonies were brief and simple in keeping with the occasion. Gary arrived at the appointed minutes, precisely between the times when the cement would be too soft or too hard. Gary, with Dan and Dick at his side, knelt on a red carpet that had been rolled out for the event, and gingerly placed his ear to the ground. Dan decided that Gary never would make much of an impression that way. So he pushed Gary’s head into the cement. It was Dick who pulled Gary’s head out of the cement.
The nurse went to work on the car with a damp towel, Dan and Dick with a chisel.
A couple of policemen watched. Gary commented “My hearing comes up next week—I hope.”
Gary signed his name in the cement and added the date. The moment left his mark in history — and cement.

Gary Owens was an announcer who played an announcer. But that’s not altogether accurate. Owens was more than an announcer. He was an entertainer. He was part of a great era of radio we will never see again. Music radio in the ‘60s wasn’t some guy saying the call-letters seven times in one breath and reading a card with some trite slogan like “More variety, less repetition” before playing the same consultant-approved song that had already been heard six times that day. Disc jockeys picked their own music. They came up with their own routines, as long or short as they wanted. Los Angeles radio was full of creativity, awash with people you wanted to listen to because they were funny. Gary Owens was one of them. And “Laugh-In” made him internationally famous when it became a sudden hit in 1968.

“Laugh-In” debuted when I was 11. I loved the show. It was fast and silly. There was one joke that struck me as so funny I couldn’t stop laughing. I have no idea now what it was, but I’ve never laughed as long since. I loved Gary Owens’ nonsense and non sequiturs. It sounds like his radio show was full of them so his hiring for “Laugh-In” (in a restaurant washroom in Burbank, as Owens once told columnist Jay Sharbutt) couldn’t have been more appropriate.

I’d written a post about Owens called “Who Was That Drelb, Anyway?” and banked it for a few months from now, but with his death I’ve dredged it up, ripped it apart, and will leave you with this remaining portion, a reprint of a United Press International column from June 14, 1969. It answers a question I never asked. I wasn’t all that concerned what a “drelb” was as a pre-teen “Laugh-In” viewer. As far as I knew, he had made up a silly word and that was plenty for me. But it’s nice to know.

Gary Owens of ‘Laugh-In’ a Man With Revenue-Making Talents
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—Gary Owens is the nut on “The Rowan and Martin Laugh-In” who stands in front of a microphone, holding a cupped hand to his ear, and opens the show by announcing “Morgul as the friendly drelb.”
There is no Morgul. A drelb is a furry, sick-looking abominable snowman. But Owens is real enough and even shows flashes of sanity.
In addition to his playing straight man to the resident dingalings on the show, Owens is a disc jockey for radio station KMPC in Hollywood from 3-6 p.m. daily. When he isn't taping the "Laugh-In" or spinning records, the South Dakota native is doing commercials. Last year his voice was heard in no fewer than 350 commercial pitches in addition to providing the vocal cords for cartoon characters "Space Ghost" and "Roger Ramjet."
Owens is married to a pretty girl named Arleta whom he met on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University. They exchanged vows in 1956.
They are the parents of Scott, 9, and Christopher, 5.
Their Encino estate in the San Fernando valley is complete with swimming pool, a full-time maid and three dogs: two dachshunds, Julie and Rosebud, and a terrier who answers to Skoshi.
Owens is proud of the fact that he began broadcasting in the Dakotas when he was only 16. He did his first announcing job with another Dakotan, Lawrence Welk.
The many-faceted Owens has three offices, one at home, another at KMPC, and a third in a Hollywood office building which is filled with filing cabinets of gags, trivia and information for his radio show.
At the moment he is completing his first book. "Gary Owens Looks at Radio," a tome on humor scheduled for publication in September.
Arleta is a brilliant amateur decorator and has furnished each of the rooms in their home in a different era and color scheme. One room is French regency, another early Greek, another modern.
She also rules the kitchen, and specializes in a variety of hamburger dishes because they are Gary's favorites.
Owens manages to juggle his new busy schedule because the producers of the NBC-TV comedy sensation allow him to "wild-track" his "Laugh-In" bit on tape Tuesday mornings. He returns Wednesday evenings—after his radio show—to tape scenes with other members of wacky staff.
To relieve the tensions of his fast-paced life. Owens plays basketball on a regulation outdoor court flanking his home.
Weekends he packs the family up and heads for Laguna Beach and the languid life in the sunshine there. He hopes to buy a home overlooking the surf as a hideaway Sunday mornings are devoted to private karate lessons. Not that he plans to defend himself except against the wild men on "Laugh-In."
Owens recently had three suits made. "They are in the 1930 George Raft style that I wear on the show," he explains. "They are so far out of style that they're becoming fashionable again."
Owens' only real eccentricity is Morgul. Sometime, somewhere, he is sure, he will track the elusive down the elusive drelb.

Gary Owens went from playing an announcer on an NBC show to being an announcer on NBC (he freelanced reading promos and liners for the network). He was a sometime host for “The Gong Show” which, despite his love of the off-beat, never really quite fit him. He did much more, of course. He was loved and respected by everyone, from what I can tell. He made people laugh and feel better as a result, including a little boy miles and miles away from Beautiful Downtown Burbank. Thanks, Gary.